Project Info

Background

Based in Harlingen from 1993, JR Shipping Group operates its own fleet, comprising container feeder, multipurpose and offshore service vessels, and provides all-round ship management services to third parties. With a small and productive workforce ashore, the short sea shipping company focuses on technology and quality systems to improve the efficiency of the JR Shipping team.

The Challenge

At sea it is commonly known to have a cellular connection within approximately the first 12 miles from shore. However, this strongly depends on the alignment of the antenna, cable and router (above and below deck equipment).JR Shipping Group’s biggest challenge was to provide tickets with data quotas to their crew. They also needed insight in what is happening on the vessel when the connection is congested by video or other downloads resulting in a high data payload.The second challenge was due to the cancellation of roaming costs in Europe. Customers can now benefit from larger data pools and thus higher data consumption. While this is wonderful for users, the hardware on the vessels struggle to cope. You need equipment that can manage the higher data throughput, which their current solutions did not allow.

The Solution

In cooperation with Frontier, Peplink and Poynting, Oceansat designed a customized solution for JR Shipping while using 4G infrastructure onboard. The option to migrate to 5G is important as the equipment and antennas are all 5G ready.The Poynting OMNI-291 marine antenna was chosen as it is mechanically and electrically optimized for use in a marine environment. As is customary with all Poynting antennas high performance, wide bandwidth and exceptional quality is a given. This combined with a Peplink Balance 30 LTE-A router and matching Access Points provided a superior solution.

The Result

Load balancing between 2 different SIM’s with 2 different profiles was necessary. Peplink InControl2 gives quick access to the network for support purposes and adjusting the settings on the network when needed, no matter where the vessel is. The sophisticated captive portal is plug and play, but it can be customized to provide a specific JR Shipping look and feel. The infrastructure is future proof (5G compliant). The modem inside the Peplink router and the Poynting broadband antenna is able to connect to operators worldwide as most frequencies are covered.

The customer said:

“The data-usage in the first weeks is already 4 times more than expected and 8 times better than the previous solution due to the quality and reliability of the network connection!”

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